Hoppner's Sedge

Carex subspathacea is evidently, with C. rufina, the smallest species of sect. Phacocystis. Larger plants with one to two staminate spikes and some bisexual spikes frequently occur in Ungava Bay, Hudson Bay, Northwest Territories, and Alaska, but their perigynium and achene characteristics are typical of C. subspathacea.

The following hybrids have been examined and are recognized: Carex ×flavicans F. Nylander (= C. subspathacea × C. aquatilis), C. ×arctophila F. Nylander (= C. subspathacea × C. bigelowii), C. ×subreducta E. Lepage, (= C. subspathacea × C. bigelowii), C. ×reducta S. Drejer (= C. subspathacea × C. nigra), C. ×dumanii E. Lepage (= C. subspathacea × C. paleacea), C. ×kenaica E. Lepage (= C. subspathacea × C. ramenskii), C. ×soerensenii E. Lepage (= C. subspathacea × C. rariflora), C. ×gauthieri E. Lepage (= C. subspathacea × C. recta), C. ×persalina E. Lepage (= C. subspathacea × C. salina).

Plants not cespitose. Culms obtusely angled, 3–15 cm, glabrous. Leaves: basal sheaths brown; sheaths of proximal leaves glabrous, fronts lacking spots and veins, apex U-shaped; blades epistomic, strongly involute, 1–2 mm wide, adaxially papillose. Proximal bract longer than inflorescence, 1–3 mm wide, spathelike at base and enclosing spike. Spikes erect; staminate 1(–2); pistillate 1–3; proximal pistillate spike 0.5–1.4 cm × 2–4 mm, base cuneate. Pistillate scales bright brown to dark purple-brown, 2–3.6 × 0.9–1.5 mm, wider than perigynia, midvein reaching apex, 1/5–1/2 the width of scale, apex acute, rarely acuminate, mucronate to short-aristate. Perigynia ascending, pale brown, sometimes with purple-brown spots on apical 1/2, veinless, somewhat inflated, loosely enclosing achenes, narrowly ellipsoid to narrowly ovoid, 2.7–3.3(–3.6) × 1–1.8 mm, leathery, dull, base with stipe to 0.3 mm, apex acute, short-papillose; beak widely conic, 0.1–0.3 × 0.3–0.5 mm. Achenes entire to slightly constricted on margins, apex truncate to retuse, dull; style base straight, rarely bent. 2n = 78, 80–83.

Greenland; Man., Nfld. and Labr., N.W.T., Nunavut, Ont., Que., Yukon; Alaska; Eurasia.

Fruiting Jun–Aug.

Saline shores, salt marshes, mainly on small pool margins, rarely on open tundra; 0–300m.

Carex hoppneri Boott; C. salina Wahlenberg var. subspathacea (Wormskjold) Tuckerman

Carex subspathacea Wormsk; Hornem. Fl. Dan 26: 4. pi. 1530. 1816.
Carex aquatilis C. nardifolia Wahl. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Nya Handl. 24: 165, in small part. 1803-
(Not as to type; from Lapland.) Carex Hoppneri Boott, in Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2:219. pi. 220. 1839. (Type from Hudson Bay.) Carex subspathacea f. stricta Drejer, Nat. Tidssk. 3: 452. 1841. (Type from Greenland.) Carex subspathacea f. curvata Drejer, Nat. Tidssk. 3: 453. 1841. (Type from Greenland.) Carex reducla Drejer, Nat. Tidssk. 3: 454. 1841. (Type from Greenland.)
Carex subspathacea var. planifolia Fries, Mant. 3: 148. 1842. (Based on C. subspathacea Wormsk.) Carex subspathacea var. nardifolia Fries, Mant. 3: 149. 1842. (Based on C. aquatilis var. nardifolia
Wahl.) Carex salina var. subspathacea Tuckerm. Enum. Caric. 12, in part. 1843. (Based on C. subspathacea
Wormsk.) Carex subspathacea var. reducla Fries, Summa Veg. Scand. 232. 1845. (Based on C. reducla Drejer.) Carex salina var. pumila Blytt, Norges Fl. 218. 1861. (Type from Norway.) Carex salina var. minor Boott, 111. Carex 160. pi. 529, 530. 1867. (Regarded as based primarily on
C. Hoppneri Boott.) Carex salina f. nana Trautv. Acta Hort. Petrop. 1 : 82. 1871. (Type from Nova Zembla.) Carex salina subsp. mutica var. subspathacea Almq. Bot. Notiser 1891: 127. 1891. (Based on C.
subspathacea Drejer.) Carex salina subsp. mutica var. subspathacea f. curvata Almq. Bot. Notiser 1891 : 127. 1891. (Based
on C. subspathacea f. curvata Drejer.) Carex salina subsp. mutica var. subspathacea f. reducta Almq. Bot. Notiser 1891 : 127. 1891. (Based
on C. reducta Drejer.) Carex salina subsp. cuspidala var. haematolepis f. thulensis Th. Fries; J. M. Macoun, in D. S. Jordan,
Fur Seals N. Pacif. 3 : 573. 1899. (Type from St. Paul Island, Bering Sea.) Carex salina var. tristigmatica Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 20 : 362, in part. 1909. (Type
from St. Paul Island, Bering Sea.) Carex subspathacea f. nardifolia "Fries" Kiikenth. in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4-°: 361. 1909. (Based
on C. subspathacea var. nardifolia Fries.) Forming beds, the culms solitary or very few together, from long-creeping, horizontal, slender, scaly, yellowish-brown rootstocks, the culms 3-30 cm. high, slender or even filiform, erect and exceeding the leaves or frequently more or less curving and hidden among the leaves, smooth, obtusely triangular, dull-purplish-red at base, arising from the midst of the conspicuous dried-up leaves of the previous year, the lower culm-leaves more or less reduced, the basal sheaths not breaking and not becoming filamentose; sterile shoots aphyllopodic ; leaves of the flowering > T ear with well-developed blades usually 3-6 to a fertile culm, on lower half, not bunched, the blades 1-15 cm. long, 1-2.5 mm. wide, firm, thickish, dull-green, flat but with the margins more or less involute towards apex, channeled towards base, varying to filiform, smooth below, little roughened towards apex, the sheaths thin and whitish or slightly yellowishtinged ventrally, the ligule wider than long, purple-dotted; terminal spike staminate, shortpeduncled, 0.5-1.5 cm. long, 2-3 mm. wide, rather few-flowered, the scales oblong-obovate, the lower obtuse, the upper cuspidate or short-awned, reddish-brown with lighter 3-nerved center and slightly hyaline margins above; pistillate spikes 1-3, erect, more or less strongly separate, the upper sessile, the lower short-peduncled, the peduncles smooth, the spikes linear or linear-oblong, 5-15 mm. long, 3-4 mm. wide, closely few-flowered, the perigynia 5-15, erect-appressed in few rows; lowest bract leaflet-like, usually sheathless but sometimes sheathing, involute or subspathaceous, from shorter than to exceeding culm; upper bracts shorter, more prominently dilated at base, subspathaceous; scales ovate, obtuse, acutish or mucronate, firm, thickish, convex, amplectant, as wide as but considerably shorter than perigynia, darkbrown or pale-brown with broad 1-3-nerved lighter center and scarcely hyaline margins; perigynia oval or elliptic-ovate, plano-convex, 3-3.5 mm. long, 1.5-2 mm. wide, glaucous-green, scarcely inflated, 2 -ribbed (the marginal), otherwise faintly nerved, subcoriaceous, densely puncticulate, frequently granular, smooth on margins or rarely sparsely ciliate-serrulate above, round-tapering and broadly substipitate at base, round-tapering above, the beak very short, 0.1-0.2 mm. long, whitish, entire or nearly so; achenes lenticular, rather loosely enveloped, filling three fourths of perigynium, oblong-quadrate, deeply constricted in middle, 2 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, broadly short-stipitate, abruptly apiculate, jointed with the rather short style; stigmas 2, slender, long.
Type locality: " In littore arenoso ad Nigestlek sinus Quanneisck Gronlandiae" (Wormskjold).
Distribution: Tidal flats, northern sea coasts, circumpolar, Greenland, Hudson Bay, northern Alaska; also in northern Eurasia. (Specimens examined from Greenland, Saguenay County, Quebec, Hudson Bav, Alaska.)

Carex subspathacea, called Hoppner's sedge, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Carex, native to coastal salt marshes of the Arctic and northwest Pacific Oceans; Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, northern and far eastern Russia, Korea, and Japan. It is grazed by snow geese (Anser caerulescens).